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Posts tagged "Preferences"

The option to store presets and templates with a specific catalog is particularly useful when there is a need for the photographer to work on several different computers. For example, in an educational “lab” environment, a student might have all of their images and catalog on an external drive making it easy to move from one machine to another during each “open lab” session. If they choose Preferences > Presets > Location and check the “Store Presets with Catalog” option, any user-created preset (such as metadata templates, develop presets etc.) will be stored within the same folder as the associated catalog (instead of in the default location). The advantage is that whichever computer you launch your Lightroom catalog on, you will see your presets and only your presets (as opposed to all of the other students’ presets).

If, however, you are working on a single computer, I would suggest that you do NOT check the “Store Presets with Catalog” option. Instead, save your presets (and templates) to the default location so that your presets will be accessible if you decide to create multiple catalogs.

Or, Control (Mac) / right mouse (Win) -click on any preset in Lightroom’s Develop module (or any Template in the output modules) and choose Show in Finder (Mac ) / Reveal in Explorer (Win) to automatically display the corresponding presets folder. Then, copy and paste (using the operating system) the preset files to the same location on the other machine.

PSCS5 – In order to save a layered Photoshop file with a high resolution preview for other applications to use (Lightroom for example), it is necessary for Photoshop to create a “flattened” version of the image and save this flattened version within the file. I would recommend that you enable the option even though it will make the file size larger. To have Photoshop automatically save the flattened version, choose Preferences > File Handling > Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility… choose Always. In PSCS5, we added a “Don’t Show Again” check box when saving which will set the preference to Always.

When launching Photoshop, Option-Command (Mac) / Alt-Control (Win) prompts you to choose an additional scratch disk folder. Note: there is a very short window between clicking the PS icon to launch it and needing to hold down the keyboard shortcut, so get your fingers ready ahead of time!

When launching Photoshop, Option-Command (Mac) / Alt-Control (Win) + Shift prompts you to delete the Adobe Photoshop settings file (which stores your preferences). Note: there is a very short window between clicking the PS icon to launch it and needing to hold down the keyboard shortcut, so get your fingers ready ahead of time!

To improve batch processing performance, in the History panel,select History Options from the fly-out menu and deselect Automatically Create First Snapshot. Depending on the length of your action, you might also want to reduce the number History States in the Preferences > Performance panel. Just don’t forget to increase the number of states when you finished batch processing!

Select Preferences > Cursors to control the look of your painting tool icons. Choose between Standard, Precise, Normal Brush Tip (which displays the brush size based on those pixels in the brush that are painting with 50% or greater opacity), and Full Size Brush Tip (which displays the cursor size around any pixel that is painted regardless of opacity). With any of the above options, you can also chose to Show Crosshair in Brush Tip to display a center point in a brush. Personally, I use set the painting Cursors to Normal Brush Tip and then use the “caps lock” key to display precise cross hairs for brushes as needed.

For Other Cursors, choose to see the Standard Photoshop icon, or choose Precise to display the cursor as a target with crosshairs. Note: clicking on any of the radial buttons will show a preview in the preferences.

When I have several images that are all tiled and I need to zoom in or out on one of them without changing the size of the window, I toggle off Preference / General / Zoom Resizes Window. If you prefer to leave your preference toggled on, then you can temporarily stop the window from resizing by adding the Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) key to the old standby – Command (Mac) / Control (Win) “+” (plus) to zoom in, Command (Mac) / Control (Win) “-” (minus) to zoom out. If I remember correctly, I believe that this default behaviors are reversed on the Windows platform (ie zooming doesn’t resize the window by default) but you can still customize your preference on either platform.

The Tool Box can be displayed as either a single or double column. Clicking the double arrows at the top of the tool box will toggle their layout. Any tool in the toolbox can be selected with a single letter shortcut key. Type that letter, get that tool. Some tool slots in the toolbox have more than one tool in them. If you want to cycle through nested tools hold the Shift key and type the shortcut for the tool. If you prefer to cycle through the tools in a group without using the Shift key, this option can be turned off by selecting (Mac) Photoshop > Preferences > General (Windows) Edit > Preferences > General) and unchecking “Use Shift Key for Tool Switch”.

To customize the display of the Brush, select Preferences/Cursors. Select one of the following: Standard (the small iconic cursors), Precise (cross hairs), normal Brush Tip (size represents pixels to be painted with greater than 50% effect), Full Size Brush Tip (size represents all pixels to be painted). Choose to “Show Cross hairs in Brush Tip” if desired. To display precise cross hairs for brushes, use the “caps lock” key.

For all of the “power” features in Photoshop CS4, there are dozens of subtle refinements that never make the A-list. Watch as Julieanne Kost uncovers these little known secrets and hidden gems — all built to make you more productive — in this video tutorial.